Pending home sales were down 2.3 percent from August to September, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors.
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To put this in perspective, with last month’s decline, the index is now at its second lowest level of the year. “Realtors in many areas are reporting stronger competition than what’s normal this time of year because of stubbornly-low inventory conditions”. In his statement, NAR’s representative Lawrence Yun said that customers have adopted “wait-and-see approach”, which is a sign of slow United States economy.
While pending home sales fell, so did mortgage rates. Consensus analysts were expecting pending homes sales to jump 1% for the last month, while the index surged 3.0% over the same period a year ago. Sarasota County saw a 15 percent decrease from September 2014, to 714 pending sales.
Sales in the Northeast fell 4 percent, the Midwest had a 2.5 percent decline, sales dropped 2.6 percent in the South, and the West’s sales were down 0.2 percent in September. And the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.54 percent this week with an average 0.2 point, down from 2.62 percent last week but above the 2.43 percent of last year.
Jonathan Corr, President and Cheif Executive Officer of Ellie Mae, Inc. a software company that processes nearly a quarter of USA mortgage applications and Mark Zandi, Chief Economist with Moody’s Analytics, will join Mr Yun to discuss changes in housing finance, the overall market and the economy.
Members of the media may register in advance to attend NAR’s annual conference by contacting Yolanda Byrd, 202-383-7515 or [email protected].
The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes.
September marked a slowdown in Americans signing contracts to buy homes, the second consecutive decline for a real estate market that has been rebounding for the first half of 2015.
Homes sales are regarded as pending when a contract between the buyer and seller has been signed, but the transaction has not yet closed.
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NAR released a separate report last Thursday showing that existing home sales rebounded by much more than expected in September. The number of pending sale contracts recorded by NAR determines the index value for that month.
